Saturday, June 30, 2007

Adventures And Escapades

This is another one of those late-'Nineties Internet memes that surfaces from time to time--make a list of things to do before you die (alternately, "things to do so that I can live")--that I find insanely interesting. See, just as I believe one can tell a lot about a person by what is on his or her bookshelves, I also believe that a list of things to do is equally revealing.

The irony of my list is how many of these things require significant travel time when I hate driving for more than about half an hour. I don't mind being someplace else, I just hate all that's involved in getting there.

20. Visit Mexican volcano Paricutin. Yeah, there's a gazillion volcanoes I could choose to see, but Paricutin embedded itself in my mind when I ran across a dramatic picture of it erupting in the Golden Book Encyclopedia.

27. Ride (sail?) in a submarine. I got to tour a U. S. Navy diesel submarine when I was eleven, now I'd like the complete experience...uh, without the depth charges and torpedoes and crash diving deeper than the hull rating.

28. Be the special guest DJ at a radio station on Halloween at, say, WRIR (Official Site) and play spooky music of my choosing all night long.

37. Write a book and have it published (NOT by Lulu.com or a vanity press unless there was absolutely, positively no other way). I'm not looking for bestseller status, but I'd love to create something that would become a minor cult fave. Would a memoir be too self-absorbed and pretentious?

38. Organize and/or participate in a game of Killer (aka The Assassination Game) or its recent variant, Humans vs. Zombies.

2 comments:

I've done six of those things (and if you come and visit here in Chicago, you can do two for certain: the Museum of Science and Industry and House on the Rock (we always are looking for an excuse to take people there)!